In times of financial crisis like what we are facing currently, in times of natural disasters like the typhoon, in times of personal crisis like unresolved conflicts we ask, "Where is God?" Who is this God that will allow especially the suffering of innocent victims? When we do not discern God in such situations there is the tendency to abandon whatever religious faith we have. It is crucially important to develop a realistic faith in God.

We have come to the end of a rather long sermon series on The Face(t)s of God. Can we now draw a composite picture of the face of God? We wish we could come face to face with God and describe God's features. This would be too simplistic and wishful thinking. Those who planned the series recognized this impossibility and took the easy way out and added a "t" with the focus on the facets of God.

The dictionary definition of the word facet is "any of the definable aspects that make up of a subject." We attempted therefore to look at the aspects of God's being that we can identify. We ended really in talking about the attributes of God like the feminine aspects of God, the macho nature of God, the heart of God and God's connection with life and Creation. Do the different pieces fit into like a jigsaw puzzle or of they like Lego pieces are formed in different shapes. Language is what we have and we view God in human terms. Without realizing it we see God though the lenses that have been provided by our different human, historical and cultural contexts. In a way most of the time we picture God in our own human image.

Peter Goh is often a man of few words but what he says is usually profound and insightful. I read his LJ or live journal in which he quoted this one-liner from Xenophanes of Colophon (570BCE-480BCE) "If horses have gods, they would look like horses."

My niece recently posted "Why Pets Hate Halloween." Halloween originally is a pagan festival in the west where they recall that the boundary between the living and dead is dissolved and therefore the spirits of the dead appear. So they have a fancy dress event and more often children dress as ghosts, witches, and skeletons. The posting find people dressing even their pets especially dogs in such Halloween costumes too. Their pets cannot appear in their natural selves. Since all dogs go to heaven, the gods in heaven should look like dogs.

Theologians remind us that we must let God be God and not God made in the image of man or woman.

There is this deep human longing on our part to see God face to face. Let us turn to Jewish tradition to the stories recorded in the book of Exodus. There are a number of instances when they were called to seek Yahweh face to face and then there are instances in which they were even prevented from looking at Yahweh and all the time Yahweh never appeared to them in human form with a face. When Yahweh met Moses in the Burning Bush in the wilderness as recorded in Exodus 3, Yahweh said, "Do not come near, put off your shoes from your feet, for the place in which you are standing is holy ground." God appears not in human form but in Nature. Yahweh also said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Yahweh is identified with God in historical terms as the God of his forefathers and foremothers.

It was recorded that Moses "hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God."
How do convey this awesomeness of God. Great cathedrals architecturally tried to portray that feeling and a visit to any cathedral will make us sense it.

It is so different from some of our contemporary church buildings which feel like a concert halls.

Yahweh is really AWESOME and we need to be fearful in the face of the glory, power and the majesty of Yahweh too. We need to recover the awesomeness of God.

Yet in another story recorded in the book of Exodus when the people of Israel were preparing themselves to enter the land flowing with milk and honey after being delivered from their bondage in Egypt. Moses had pitched a tent outside the camp and everyone who wants to meet Lord would have to go to the tent. Yahweh appeared in the form a pillar of cloud and the people would rise up and worship. Yahweh gave the assurance that the holy presence will go alongside with Moses and his people. Yahweh will appear as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide them on their way.

Moses wanted God to disclose Himself completely. But the Lord said, "But you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live." The goodness and mercy of God can be seen but the mystery of God being cannot be revealed. We human beings are not able to see God fully. God is hidden. We are mortals, finite. We do not have the capacity to see and understand God fully.
These Biblical stories must be quite confusing. We are called to interface with God and then we were warned not to see God face to face. Metaphorically it is a picture of spiritual communion. The relationship between God and man in prayer is one of close spiritual relationship.

I had been guided by two significant books of Gordon Kaufman, Professor of Divinity in Harvard University. The titles themselves are suggestive. One is "The Face of Mystery" and the other is "God – Mystery – Diversity." He acknowledges that we encounter the mystery of God. And we acknowledge cultural relativism, religious pluralism, scientific knowledge and historical understanding in forming our images of God.

Inasmuch as we try to see the face of God or seek to understand the facets of God we must take into account the Divine Mystery. Do we give room to mystery even though we have deep faith and strong convictions? We try always to unravel as much mystery as we can with our human abilities while recognizing our human limitations. We study the historical development of the religions of humankind, the interpretation of the Biblical accounts, the tradition of church teaching, the authority of religious leaders and scholars. Finally, surrounded by all these views of God, it has to come down to our individual decision as to what we in faith believe to be true and realizing that we accept it to be absolute truth tentatively in our contemporary context with honesty and integrity.

Prophet Isaiah 55:8-9 proclaims that we are to "seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near." But he shows our limitations - the difference between man and God. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

In agreement with the words from Corinthians 13 – "For our knowledge is imperfect: but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood."

There is also the partial but not full knowledge as demonstrated in the classic tale of the blind men and the elephant which is part of Buddhist lore. The conclusion of Buddha was:
O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarrelling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing.

But we do have certain images of God. How did we form them? If we can think back to the beginnings of human life on earth when self-consciousness sets in, maybe we can find some clues.

Theologians and anthropologists feel that our first fully human ancestors developed primitive concepts of God in order to lessen their anxiety about the present and the future. Thus began the first religion, Animism. This was, and is, typically found in hunter-gatherer societies. They began to believe that the rocks, mountains, rivers, sun, moon, trees, land animals, birds, etc. each animated by a spirit.

I remember how I used in my early childhood years to accompany my mother to the traditional Chinese temple in the small town of Kampar. I just visited it again early this year. The temple is still there at the foot of the small mountain and the house where I was born is still there – a little rundown. The idols in the Temple seem to be intimidating then with the Goddess Kwan Yin and the God of war – Kwan Kung and God of wealth and others. They are all to be worshipped in order that they will protect us in a threatening and uncertain world.

When I was serving the Iban community in Sarawak or the Sengois in Perak I hear their traditional beliefs of the world populated by spirits. So in the Iban community we hear that they listen to the sounds of the hornbill bird and when they sing in the morning it is a message that they are not to venture out to forage for food or engage in agricultural pursuits. The Sengois would dance in a round chanting until they fall into a trance and become spirit filled. Primitive people from time immemorial have built up their beliefs in the pantheon of gods or what we now call as idols to worship and to guide their lives. We can imagine that as become conscious of their existence on earth and try to understand their surroundings they must acknowledge the gods who are in control around them. This is how they interpret the roaring thunder, the searing lightning, the glorious sun and the mellow moon?

The forces that they see around them are personalised and they could be helpful or destructive. But they all can be placated. Medicine man, witches, shamans and healers play their leadership roles in this community.

When hunting and gathering were replaced by planting of crops and domestication of animals, a major change occurred in their religious life. Fertility of the crops and animals gained importance. Fertility was seen as clearly feminine in nature; only the female can produce offspring. Religion tended to be centered on the worship of matriarchal Goddess - the Earth Mother, Great Goddess or Great Mother.

A variety of Pagan and tribal polytheistic religions featuring Gods and Goddesses developed among the Greeks, Romans, and the tribes as we read about them in the Old Testament. Even some of their kings were cast as idols and worshipped in their temples. Yahweh had to contend with a host of such gods.

Judaism is the one that first promoted the existence of only one God of all the people. In the context of polytheism Yahweh was the Chief God. This the concept of monotheism - a single powerful male deity who defeated all the tribal and secular gods in battle.
Through their interpretation of historical events the Jews came around to affirm the One Supreme Being. He is the Yahweh who cares for the Israelites and will vanquish the enemies who follow other gods. Monotheism displaced polytheism.

This classic teaching is found in the words of the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4
Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. This is the belief of Jesus of Nazareth a faithful Jew. Yahweh is affirmed as the God who brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

There is a history of the Gods as Karen Armstrong traced it in her book under the same title. Human beings are idol-makers and God-makers. In their helplessness in a confused and complicated world and with all the uncertainties we need God and faith to cope with our earthly existence at each stage of our human history.

Most of us see God as a powerful supernatural being located in heaven and presiding over creation. This God will send His messengers to the earth and especially to a certain Chosen group of people and will intervene when they call upon Him to help in time of need. This Special group are the Christians, the born-again Christians who will be raptured and other Christians and non-Christians will be left behind. In their eyes I will certainly be left behind. I suspect that I may not be alone.

In contrast with the Jews who are members of the Old Covenant, Christians are those in the New Covenant and have accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah. But Moslems came alongside to claim that the Prophet Mohamed is the last prophet who is in line with all previous prophets before him in human history including Jesus. God is the exclusive One even though Jews, Christians and Moslems are all descendants of Abraham and we are related for the blood of Abraham flows in our veins. The position of all people of other faith communities will be further left behind when the time comes.

These are what we call truth-claims and they are all based on revelations as recorded in the sacred texts of the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible or the Koran. Angel Gabriel dictated to Prophet Mohamed in Arabic all the words in the Koran. Within the Bible itself and Christian tradition we come across theological controversies. Paul had to engage the anointed leaders of the Jesus Movement to free his understanding of God who does not require circumcision which the Jews till this day declares as absolute truth. The early church had to debate furiously and with the help of Imperial Rome to concretized their faith in the Nicene creed for the sake of the stability of the state. The early Church leaders resolved other theological controversies and formulated other creeds including the Apostles creed to maintain the uniformity of the Church. The church leaders debated and collected the books to form the Holy Bible we have today. Their actions were determined by the culture and theological understanding at that time in history. We have to continue to do so in our contemporary situation to reflect upon our present perceptions of God.

The question that we have to ask ourselves is. "Must we be bound by the traditional concepts of God?" God who is supernatural being above us in heaven will intervene now and then and when we call upon Him. Are we able to move to God as Creator and Sustainer of the universe and the God of Love for all beings. Can we move from God who is exclusive to one's own tribal community, ethnic community to a faith community that is inclusive. Can we believe that God who is the basis of our human existence is with us in our midst and works with all people whom God created.

Let me go back to Gordon Kaufman when he wrote in his book "In the Face of Mystery" to guide us : "To believe in God is to commit oneself to a particular way of ordering one's life and action. It is to devote oneself to working towards a fully humane world within the ecological restraints here on planet Earth, while standing in faith piety and awe before the profound mysteries of existence."

In faith we believe there is this God – a divine mystery – that defies any definition that we can provide. God is in Creation and with all the footprints of the faithful prompting, guiding, influencing and stimulating. We are all dependent upon God's grace and mercy to live. For in God we "live and move and have our being." We see in the face and life of Jesus Christ what we are to become in the fullness of our humanity.

One of our contemporary theologians Lloyd Geering wrote: "The God that is known is an idol. The God who can be defined, is no God. It is of the essence of human existence that man lives not by knowledge but by faith. It is by faith that man is led to fulfillment and ultimate destiny, and God is the ground of our faith."

We are not to devote to define God or describe the facets of God. We to live by faith and be engaged in kingdom-building on earth. Thy will be done on earth is our prayer.
Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God in his ministry. John the Baptist asked who is this person and sent his followers to inquire. Jesus in answer did not spend time describing himself but pointed to signs of the Kingdom. "The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear…"
We too see Christ, see God when changes like these occur in our midst as Lloyd Geering described them:
"There is increasing freedom to think and to speak,
the slaves are being freed,
patriarchy is crumbling,
homosexuals are free to 'come out',
weapons of mass destruction are being widely condemned,
racist attitudes are being overcome,
equality of the sexes is being achieved,
the disadvantaged are no longer being ignored,
human worth and values are being increasingly honored."
Let me end with this statement of Mother Theresa when she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize:
"It is not enough for us to say, 'I love God, but I do not love my neighbor,'" she said, since in dying on the Cross, God had "[made] himself the hungry one — the naked one — the homeless one." Jesus' hunger, she said, is what "you and I must find" and alleviate. She condemned abortion and bemoaned youthful drug addiction in the West. Finally, she suggested that the upcoming Christmas holiday should remind the world "that radiating joy is real" because Christ is everywhere — "Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor we meet, Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we receive."